According to a new employment-unemployment (EU) survey conducted by the Labour Bureau, over a third of working people are employed for less than a year and 68% of households are earning up to only ₹10,000 per month. The survey says that joblessness in India is running at a five-year high of 5%.
Over 7.8 lakh persons in 1.6 lakh households were surveyed across the country between April and December 2015.
The survey said that urban areas continue to provide more and better paying jobs compared with the rural areas. As a result of dependence on seasonal agriculture work, about 42% of workers in rural areas work for less than 12 months in a year.
In Rural areas 77% of the households end up with an average monthly income of less than Rs 10,000 while in urban areas, about half the households earn between Rs 10,000 and Rs 50,000 per month.
Commenting on women’s employment the survey observes that it continues to stagnate with 8.7% of women in the labour force without jobs.
The labour bureau survey also found that about 47% of the working population was self-employed. This would be mostly farmers, shopkeepers, and enterprise owners.
